Once again, kudos to my reviewers and just my general fans! I'm glad everyone is liking this story, cause I'm liking writing it! LOL...I'm so glad to see we all love me as much asI love me...I love you all too!
This chapter is devoted to someone who made me laugh with their review and cause they love DR too...GreyEyedGirl...go ahead...stand up...take a bow! This chapter is for all of us who love DR...since it is the first chapter when I get to actually use a DR song!
And on a special note, the song for this chapter is "Insane" by Damien Rice...yes...I can't help it...it just hits the right chords for this chapter...
The work on Brian Gravies was some of the toughest Cristina could remember doing. Because of the lack of nurses and residents, all three of them had their hands in the patient, so to speak. There was a lot of patient to have their hands in. The problem with shotgun victims is that because shotguns don't use bullets as we think of them, what you get is so much raw hamburger. Buckshot gets into the body and moves around, basically tearing up the inside of a person until the body is little more than mulch.
Thankfully for Brian, the shot was actually clean for the most part. Cristina and Izzie were pulling out buckshot, while Burke came in and cleaned up after him. The one thing they were on the lookout was the chance of buckshot getting into the bloodstream and heading to his brain, where it would kill him instantly.
It was a straight-forward surgery, despite the difficulty factor of it. What really made the entire situation so tense was the fact that Big John had a machine gun pointed at them the entire time. Well, sometimes it was pointed at them. Sometimes it was pointed at the destroyed door. You could quite clearly hear that there was movement in the hall, but so far there had been no more attempts to communicate.
Burke, for his part, was handling it well. He was calm and collected on the outside, not letting either of his two interns, and that's how he had to think of them if he was to stay calm and collected, know that he was panicky inside. He couldn't even bring himself to look at Cristina for fear that it would spur him to do both dangerous and stupid things. Of course, since he was operating on a patient in unwelcoming circumstances, maybe he shouldn't be looking away anyways.
"What are you doing?" John asked from his place in the corner opposite the door. It put him just feet away from his cousin and gave him a good view of the door.
"We're sewing up your cousin's heart."
"You're touching his heart?"
"Trying not to so much since without a monitor we can't really tell what's happening in there."
"Oh..." It appeared that the situation was finally dawning on John Gravies, because he was starting to somber up. Wasn't being as gun-happy as he had been.
He was sitting there, silent, when Izzie couldn't withhold her urge to scold any longer. Despite glares from both Burke and Cristina, which were surprisingly alike which goes to show that couples do start to act like each other, she posed the question on all their minds. "Why are you doing this?"
John looked at her, then looked away. "He's all I got."
"How'd he get shot?" Cristina asked, ignoring that Burke was now glaring at her too. "For medical purposes." She explained to the room in general, not wanting her form of curiosity to be confused with Izzie's just plain nosiness.
"We were robbing a convenience store...cause Bri got some loans he couldn't pay off. I have money, but not enough for this. I know you all look at me and see some white trash criminal, but I used to be a stockbroker on Wall Street. I grew up in the country, which meant I had an accent, and a lot of people used to think I was slow or something. I wasn't, and when I made my money I invested it. I got out while I had a nice little nest egg. Then I took to traveling. Brian, he came with me. I never thought of how he got that new bike or how he got the fancy clothes. I guess I was just wound up in me. He came to me after they beat him. Told me he needed help. He had only 18 hours to get the money. I didn't have enough time to get to my accounts and get the money. So we improvised...the clerk shot him. It was meant for me. He took it for me." Suddenly, he wasn't so amiable anymore. John raised the mini-Uzi and pointed it right at Cristina, who felt her heart stop in that moment. "You guys save him. You save him now."
Burke couldn't see that the gun was pointed at Cristina, and she was glad for it because he would surely have a heart attack. That's one draw-back of dating an older man...they die more easy. Cristina gave a minute nod and John lowered the gun, taking on a look of defeat again. Cristina breathed again. Burke barely glanced up from his work, he was concentrating so hard.
Cristina looked down and was happy to see that they were almost done. Despite not having all the equipment a surgery like this usually had, the patient was still alive and they'd removed all the buckshot that they could find. It'd have been better to get an X-ray, and really pinpoint the exact places of the buckshot, but that hadn't been an option. However, thanks to all three of them they'd gotten as much of it out as possible. It also appeared that none of it had actually hit his heart, which was very good considering that he would have died almost instantly if it had.
Even as Burke started to close up the biggest wound, an inch-long slash made by a particularly large piece of buckshot that had ingratiated itself in Brian's windpipe. Burke was a skilled surgeon, and he quickly removed the sharp metal, sewing up the cut like a pro. Burke looked over the young man's chest, already searching out the next part...but there were no more. Brian Gravies was all sewed up and still alive. He'd done it.
However, even as Burke turned to tell John the good news the patient started to violently convulse. Within seconds, blood was leaking from his fresh sutures, as well as his mouth. While Izzie and Cristina held the flailing man down, Burke tried to assess the situation. He didn't know what went wrong. The surgery had been clean, good even!
"What's happening? What's wrong with him!" John asked, hurrying to his cousin's side, leaving the gun behind on the counter.
"I don't know, back up, Mr. Gravies!" Burke shouted as he pushed John away, pulling the sheet away from Brian's lower body. "Did he have any other injuries? Was he sick? Anything?"
"Those goons...they broke his knee," John said hesitantly, gesturing with his head as he backed into the corner, his eyes fastened on his cousin pale, dirty face.
Burke used a scalpel to cut away the patient's pant leg, all the way up to the thigh. Doing so revealed the puss-filled, swollen, bleeding mess that was Brian Gravies' knee. It was quite clear that despite only having occurred recently, the injury was extremely infected. Burke shook his head, and tried to think for a minute. All his thoughts were swirling around, a miasma of indecision. Burke didn't work well in panic. He liked controlled situations. Situations he controlled. When he knew all the factors. When he could see it all...but now, he couldn't. He couldn't see anything past his dying patient, his frightened girlfriend, and the blinding awareness that he could die at any minute. He was Preston Burke. He didn't like this situation at all.
"The wound is infected. We need penicillin. Dr. Stevens, get the penicillin."
Izzie froze. "We don't have any. It's all in the medical closet. We're not allowed to keep it in the ER since last time it all got stolen from the rooms."
"Mr. Gravies?" Burke turned to John, the cool tone in his voice brooking no ignoring. "Dr. Stevens is going to leave this room to get penicillin to save your cousin's life...do you have a problem with that?"
John shook his head, and Cristina watched in amazement as Izzie ran from the room. Brian was still convulsing, but not as bad as he had. Cristina would never admit it, but when Burke was all controlled like that...it got her hot. It was very sexy. Brian stopped moving under her hands, and Cristina dragged her gaze back to him. His chest wasn't rising, and his pulse was dropping.
"Burke! We're losing him!"
Burke immediately returned to the patient's side, shouting as he did. "Get the code cart! Now, Cristina!"
Cristina jolted from that small space in her mind where she was counting Brian's heartbeat as it slowed down, and jumped for the cart. It was next to John, and she didn't even think of walking by him to get it. Just as she turned to push the cart over to Burke, an arm slammed around her neck and she was jerked off her feet. She started to struggle instinctively, but a sound from the gun had her freezing.
"Doc, you save my cousin or your pretty little friend will die, got it? Ain't no room for failure here!" John shouted, drawing Burke's attention to the new situation. Cristina locked eyes with her lover and she tried not to panic. John slowly set her down, keeping an arm around her neck so she couldn't move. The mini-Uzi, looking like an omen from hell, was pointed at her head.
"It's okay, Burke. You do what you have to do," Cristina said in a surprisingly steady voice as she reached out and sent the code cart coasting over to him. He was still looking at her when he caught it. He nodded, trying to tell her something with his eyes but whatever it was she didn't want to see.
Burke turned and gelled the paddles himself. He turned the machine on and turned to the prone body of his patient. His patient. Brian Gravies. If his cousin was holding Burke's girlfriend hostage, Burke might as well call the boy by the name. Brian.
Burke waited for the beep that meant the machine was charged, and the silence of the room despite the loud whine of the machine was deafening. Never had death been so close on them that they could feel her clammy hand in their chests. The beep of the machine startled them all, and Burke slammed the paddles onto Brian's chest. Electricity slammed through the skin and the bone and muscle, wrapping around the strong heart in his chest. No reaction. No pulse.
Burke increased the voltage, all the way up to 360. That's the highest it could go. 360. Full circle. The whine started again, louder this time. Beep. Burke once again slammed the paddles down. The body jumped this time, more from the force of the paddles hitting than life returning. Burke was about to try again, one last time, when Izzie came slamming around the corner. Her sudden entrance set off the ticking bomb that had been winding up for the past two hours of surgery. John cracked.
Suddenly, Cristina was pushed away as Big John pulled the Uzi into the two handed grip needed. Within seconds all three of the doctors knew what was going to happen. Even the people in the hall could feel the dam break. Even as the machine gun started to shoot, a hand was reaching in and pulling Izzie from harm's way. Bullets slammed into the doorframe where she'd just been, and even as Cristina thanked God that she'd moved, the bullets started to rebound. The frame was metal.
For minutes the pang of bullets hitting the window, the ceiling, the floor, and even flesh was heard. Finally, there was a clicking sound. The gun was empty. Burke stood immediately and grabbed it from John's hands. John, who was suddenly frozen much like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He just stared at Burke. Burke cold cocked John into the wall, where he slid down still staring. Cristina couldn't move.
It was all so tableau-like. Almost as if it were a scene from a movie. Bad guy almost kills everyone, but good guy wins in the end and gets the girl. Except, wasn't there always some kind of catch to those endings?
Cristina stood, and did one of the most girly things she'd ever done. She hugged her boyfriend. She'd been so scared, for herself, for Izzie, for him. She hadn't been able to think. Now, it seemed she couldn't stop thinking.
Behind them, police swam through the door. Shepard and Meredith, as well as George and Alex bullied their ways through the cops to the patient, automatically checking the patient, who was as dead as he had been before, though he now had several bullet wounds.
"Are you two alright?" Meredith asked, coming close to watch as the police handcuffed the slightly out-of-it John. He was still only staring. He'd lost.
Cristina nodded and pulled away from Burke in slight embarrassment. Embarrassment after all this? Cristina nodded, and started to wrap her arms around Burke again. Then she noticed the slick feeling that lay on her arm. Blood. Bright red blood.
She stared at Burke's ashen face. "Burke? Baby? You're bleeding. You've been shot."
He only smiled.
Okay...so...YAY! Next chapter is the final chapter when all will be revealed! And...I'm also thinking...maybe...sequel...it all depends on how you guys take the end...eh...who am I kidding? I'm gonna do a sequel anyways.